No Room For Lame Excuses

Election Day 2012 is less than a month away. Time sure flies when you’re having fun. You have 25 days to clear at least one hour out of your day to cast your vote. Get on it people!

I took the liberty to compile some fun election facts to you know, get this party started. Be inspired, swayed or guilted, I really don’t care what it takes to get you to VOTEon TUESDAYNOVEMBER 6, 2012.Do It!

Speaking of Tuesday…

Do you know why Election Day just happens to land on the first Tuesday in November? It’s complicated, let me explain.

▪ November was selected because the harvest work was done. Today “harvest work” may be defined as taking down the Halloween decorations…not sure.

▪ Tuesday was selected because many people had to travel the day before to reach the polling place. Since most people did not travel on Sunday for religious reasons, they did not want it to be on a Monday. Wow! This makes the old “it’s raining” excuse seem really lame.

▪ They did not want Election Day to fall on November 1st because it is All Saints Day. Well played forefathers, well-played indeed.

▪ They did not want Election Day to fall on the first of the month because many shop keepers did their books for the preceding month on the first. Now wasn’t that considerate? Let’s reciprocate shall we…thanks.

A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won’t cross the street to vote in a national election. ~Bill VaughanMore

THE TALLEST president was Lincoln at 6’4″; at 5’4″, Madison was the shortest.

THE TERM FIRST LADY was first used in 1877 in reference to Lucy Ware Webb Hayes. Most First Ladies, including Jackie Kennedy, are said to have hated the label.

Why Should You Vote?

Because I said so! Sometimes this is the only necessary argument.

Because it took 72 years of crusading by women like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to earn all women the right to vote. Yes, that is guilt your feeling. Yes, that was the intention.

Because in 1960, John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon by less than one voter per precinct. So yes, we can hunt you down and we will.

Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting. Franklin D. Roosevelt

Because in 1996, among the world’s 20 biggest democracies, voter turnout in the U.S. was lower than every country except Switzerland. Belgium was top of the list with 94 percent. Come on already, do you really want to live down to our lazy stereotype? No, the answer is NO.

Because in 1845, one vote brought Texas into the Union. Oh, what’s that? One vote made a difference..umm hmm yes it did.

Because some have made the ultimate sacrifice for the right to vote. Among them: civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Medgar Evers, who were assassinated; Fannie Lou Hamer, who was beaten, lost her job and her house for insisting she had the right to vote in Mississippi; Vernon Dahmer, who died protecting his family and home because he allowed blacks to pay their poll tax at his store; and Andrew Goodman, Mickey Schwerner and James Chaney, who were murdered for helping blacks register in the South. People have died for this privilege. So yea, Bobby & Susie’s soccer practice can wait 5 minutes.

Because you get permission to complain for the next for years. If you don’t vote, you will need to shut it.

Because about 7,200 Americans died during the Revolutionary War, 8,200 more were wounded and as many as 10,000 died in military camps from disease or exposure. Many soldiers from the Continental Army were never paid for their service. They were fighting for the right to vote. It’s a PRIVLEDGE.

Because you just never know who you might meet in line. Love can be found in the strangest places….just saying.

The Number One Reason You Should Vote: This the one day when everyone in the U.S. is EQUAL. Your vote counts just as much as anyone else’s.VOTE! Tuesday November 6, 2012…Enjoy the Ride!

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27 responses

I am going to vote tomorrow since I will not be here on election day. Well said! We do need to vote, it is a privilege we have, it is an honor to be able to voice our opinion and to vote. thanks for this post, DAF And yes, I am writing this while the t.v. is on the vice presidential debate is going on.

You don’t have to tell me twice. I already have my outfit picked out. I have done all the stuff to make sure my voice will be counted. I will stand in line all day if I have to. Thanks for all the interesting info..I Am There, In Alabama!!!

This is super. With such a train wreck of arguments and stand-offs, a straight out pep talk to just get out there is soooooooooo refreshing. Interesting facts (let me repeat that, felt good, facts) too.

Don’t yell at me but after almost 6 years of living here in NJ, we finally registered to vote and have every intention of doing so. Not that the previous election wasn’t important but we find this one to be even more so. We will exercise our right that so many people fought and died for!

Great post!!! I have made it a point to vote in every election but one since I turned 18. I think it is one of the most important things we do as Americans. The one I missed was just stupidity. I was out of the country and forgot to vote absentee before I left. My husband and I took our girls with us when they were little to see us vote so they could understand what it was about and the importance of it all as well. BTW, I happend your way by way of the Ironic Mom!

You can imagine how much I love this, all those historical facts. We were blessed to be able to vote plain and simply. It wasn’t that long ago that women couldn’t and those 2 women you mentioned, Ms Anthony and Mrs. Stanton never saw the vote in their lifetime. That always makes me cry so, ladies in particular, let us vote for them. GREAT POST Lisa.

They were both Quakers. Quaker women had no fear of standing up and fighting for the rest of us, sometimes with 13 kids back at the farm. You would love their history! I recently did an essay for this Quaker adult class on a woman named Charity Cook…she blew me away! 14 kids and still found time to WALK to NYC to catch a ship to Europe to preach, which was another journey that took months. Unbelievable!

This is my 15th presidential election and for the very first time, I am expected to vote for a candidate who violates my deepest, dearest principle.

That principle is respect for the individual, human rights, the rights of man. It’s the rock on which civilization is built. My father taught his family that by living up to it. In his shadow I have a long history serving the cause of human rights wi
th the American Civil Liberties Union.

Why the ACLU? Because respecting civil liberties is the ONLY way government shows it respects its subjects.

When government treats people as possessions and itself as above the law, that government is our enemy. It happened before to other nations. Now it’s our turn.

For the first time in modern presidential history in this country, no one is running who will defend human rights.

We are asked to re-elect a president who imprisons people without trial and without hope of being free, and who claims their very existence is a state secret, or we can vote for his opponent to do the same thing.

This year our choice is to re-elect a president who treats air travelers as terrorists, and strips them naked for government eyes, or elect a Republican to do that.

This year my candidate is asking for another term to violate his oath to defend our Bill of Rights, and his opponent offers no alternative.

“The lesser of two evils” has always determined which lever to pull in elections. This year is different. For human rights these men are evil equally.

Obama is asking us to approve how he carried out his oath to defend the constitution. If we give him that vote, our only scrap of power, we participate in our demise.

Either we have principles to stand for, and deny our vote to those who violate them, or we vote anyway and admit those principles really don’t matter.